Losing politician Steve Westly heads — where else — into venture capital
Steve Westly, the former state controller and eBay executive who failed in a gambit to become state governor, is headed back to Menlo Park, the center of Silicon Valley’s venture capital industry.
He may have lost the California Democratic primary to Phil Angelides, but he’s joining Angelides (who won the primary but who subsequently lost to Schwarzenegger) in retreating back to the next best thing — a career in the sexy world of venture capital.
Just like Angelides did a couple of weeks ago, Westly is forming his own investment company. He’s calling it the Westly Group — “to bankroll environmentally friendly business ventures ‘and make sure California is ground zero for the clean technology revolution,’” reports the Sacramento Bee.
Westly’s company will have offices at the big-name venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the backer of Google and many other companies, and which has stepped up investments into green technology. According to the Bee:
In an informal relationship with Kleiner Perkins, Westly will be a co-investor, adviser and roving public speaker on environmentally friendly technologies.
Reminds of the appointment of Colin Powell to Kleiner a year and a half ago.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
